James S Saint wrote:In this context, "Free-will" refers to being free from satanic manipulation and coercions of the flesh.

So no humans, then.

If I isolate you from temptation, you will be free of any condemnation from it. So it is actually closer to "only humans" (the chosen).

Oh, I was mostly thinking about the latter. When you said 'coercions of the flesh', I'm thinking- well, we all have to eat, drink, and come in out of the cold, and throughout history people have been driven to evil deeds again and again simply because of those things.

Uccisore wrote:Oh, I was mostly thinking about the latter. When you said 'coercions of the flesh', I'm thinking- well, we all have to eat, drink, and come in out of the cold, and throughout history people have been driven to evil deeds again and again simply because of those things.

In scriptures, although a little misleading today, the term "flesh" refers to your normal animal instincts; wants, desires, lusts, addictions, the seven sins, or whatever. One can become free from such urges so that decisions become the result of a more balanced assessment of ones needs, more disciplined.

When one is addicted to anything, one's "will" is not free. When addicted, even if you decide to stop drinking alcohol, you will keep drinking it anyway. If you don't believe that, just try it and you will quickly learn .. and be cursed, requiring outside assistance. A respect for God can be deeply felt enough to "set you free", especially along with the organized assistance of a true, forgiving (aka "Jesus") church. Today, you are supposed to hate "organized religion" so that there will be far less outside assistance and the reign of desires, lusts, and addictions can resume in making specific people extremely rich and powerful.

Clarify, Verify, Instill, and Reinforce the Perception of Hopes and Threats unto Anentropic HarmonyElseFrom THIS age of sleep, Homo-sapien shall never awake.

The Wise gather together to help one another in EVERY aspect of living.

You are always more insecure than you think, just not by what you think.The only absolute certainty is formed by the absolute lack of alternatives.It is not merely "do what works", but "to accomplish what purpose in what time frame at what cost".As long as the authority is secretive, the population will be subjugated.

Amid the lack of certainty, put faith in the wiser to believe.Devil's Motto: Make it look good, safe, innocent, and wise.. until it is too late to choose otherwise.

The Real God ≡ The reason/cause for the Universe being what it is = "The situation cannot be what it is and also remain as it is"..

If you are trying to avoid discipline, you are suckering into Satanism (being lost in lusts). And it all happens for very exact psychological, physiological, and neurological reasons. It isn't superstition.

Clarify, Verify, Instill, and Reinforce the Perception of Hopes and Threats unto Anentropic HarmonyElseFrom THIS age of sleep, Homo-sapien shall never awake.

The Wise gather together to help one another in EVERY aspect of living.

You are always more insecure than you think, just not by what you think.The only absolute certainty is formed by the absolute lack of alternatives.It is not merely "do what works", but "to accomplish what purpose in what time frame at what cost".As long as the authority is secretive, the population will be subjugated.

Amid the lack of certainty, put faith in the wiser to believe.Devil's Motto: Make it look good, safe, innocent, and wise.. until it is too late to choose otherwise.

The Real God ≡ The reason/cause for the Universe being what it is = "The situation cannot be what it is and also remain as it is"..

James S Saint wrote:If you are trying to avoid discipline, you are suckering into Satanism (being lost in lusts). And it all happens for very exact psychological, physiological, and neurological reasons. It isn't superstition.

Ahh... You're afraid of not being able to hurt real people.

James, in case you haven't figured it out yet, everything you do here hurts someone, even innocents.

James S Saint wrote:If you are trying to avoid discipline, you are suckering into Satanism (being lost in lusts). And it all happens for very exact psychological, physiological, and neurological reasons. It isn't superstition.

Ahh... You're afraid of not being able to hurt real people.

Huh??.. I'll probably regret the asking, but...

Clarify, Verify, Instill, and Reinforce the Perception of Hopes and Threats unto Anentropic HarmonyElseFrom THIS age of sleep, Homo-sapien shall never awake.

The Wise gather together to help one another in EVERY aspect of living.

You are always more insecure than you think, just not by what you think.The only absolute certainty is formed by the absolute lack of alternatives.It is not merely "do what works", but "to accomplish what purpose in what time frame at what cost".As long as the authority is secretive, the population will be subjugated.

Amid the lack of certainty, put faith in the wiser to believe.Devil's Motto: Make it look good, safe, innocent, and wise.. until it is too late to choose otherwise.

The Real God ≡ The reason/cause for the Universe being what it is = "The situation cannot be what it is and also remain as it is"..

James S Saint wrote:If you are trying to avoid discipline, you are suckering into Satanism (being lost in lusts). And it all happens for very exact psychological, physiological, and neurological reasons. It isn't superstition.

Ahh... You're afraid of not being able to hurt real people.

James, in case you haven't figured it out yet, everything you do here hurts someone, even innocents.

Just making a wild guess here...Are you thinking of "discipline" as a punishment type of "hurting people"??

I was referring to the self discipline of holding yourself to your own plans, not beating a child for stealing a cookie.

Clarify, Verify, Instill, and Reinforce the Perception of Hopes and Threats unto Anentropic HarmonyElseFrom THIS age of sleep, Homo-sapien shall never awake.

The Wise gather together to help one another in EVERY aspect of living.

You are always more insecure than you think, just not by what you think.The only absolute certainty is formed by the absolute lack of alternatives.It is not merely "do what works", but "to accomplish what purpose in what time frame at what cost".As long as the authority is secretive, the population will be subjugated.

Amid the lack of certainty, put faith in the wiser to believe.Devil's Motto: Make it look good, safe, innocent, and wise.. until it is too late to choose otherwise.

The Real God ≡ The reason/cause for the Universe being what it is = "The situation cannot be what it is and also remain as it is"..

No, what I mean, is say, you become celibate or chaste, you're hurting good people who want to experience the bond of sexuality with you. If you're sexual, you're hurting all the good people who can't have sex with you because of imposed limitations.

If you become president, you hurt everyone else who wanted to be president, if you don't become president, you hurt all the people who wanted you to be president.

If you are homeless, you hurt everyone who this makes uncomfortable, if you have a home, you hurt everyone who wants that home.

Basically, the more you see life clearly, with sharp resolution, you become keenly aware, that no matter what you do here, you're hurting someone ...

This doesn't excuse hurting those people either ...

The goal , the real game in life, not the distractions, is to solve this problem once and for all, and not just lolly gag through life, living a meaningless life.

iambiguous wrote:And what might that argument sound like? If a particular Christian philosopher starts with the assumption that God is omniscient, then how is that reconciled with human autonomy?

The same way as an argument beginning with omipotence, I would imagine. Philosophers who believe in libertarian free will tend to refer to omnipotence as 'having the maximal degree of power' - the most power any Being can have. Omniscience would be having the maximal degree of knowledge. So for example, maybe God doesn't know what it's like to be a bat, because as Nagel pointed out, it's impossible for anything but a bat to know. Philosophers will argue about whether or not knowing the future imposes on being's free will. Plantinga wrote quite a bit about the interaction between devine foreknowledge and free will. http://plato.stanford.edu/entries/free- ... knowledge/

So you could argue that God simply doesn't know what free creatures will do, as a consequence of him giving them free will. Or you could argue that God does know what free creatures will do, but this doesn't make them any less free.

Yes, you could argue this; but my point above involves taking these generally abstract, scholastic assessments of the relationship between an omniscient God and mere mortals, and situating it out in the world of actual human interactions.

Omniscient: having complete or unlimited knowledge, awareness, or understanding; perceiving all things.

To argue then that an all-knowing God does not know whether Jane will abort or not about her unborn baby, or that Jack will or will not report her to the authorities, seems to ascribe the meaning of the word "omniscient" to God as but one more manifestation of His "mysterious ways". And, of course, the faithful can always fall back on that to rationalize anything with respect to Him.

Similarly if a bat could only be as God intended it to be how could this omniscient God not know what it is like to be a bat? It is as though this all-powerful entity set life itself into motion such that it would evolve on its own into minds [ours] able to probe these questions self-consciously.

In other words, whatever that means.

And [thus] we are still back to square one: connecting all of these endless "intellectual" and "theoretical" speculations to an actual extant God.

A God, the God, your God.

And not theirs.

Or, sure, maybe it's just me. My inability to reconcile the idea of an omniscient God able to be the "perfect predictor" with mere mortals able to choose behaviors that would be both "free" and wholly [necessarily] in sync with God's prediction of what it will be.

And what then is the limit to that which mortals are able to think, feel and behave autonomously?

Are they able to prove the existence of God if God does not want His existence able to be proven? Are they able to teach themselves to behave in such a manner that God is not aware of it? Can they discover how to trick God? To defy God with impunity?

As long as there is a gap between what mere mortals think, feel and do and God's awareness of this, it would seem to make this relationship considerably more problematic.

For example, am I "free" to not believe in God? Or, as some Christians [among others] insists, "free" or not, will my refusal [inability] to accept Jesus Christ as my personal savior result [necessarily] in eternal damnation?

And [of course] always this: with so much at stake how/why is it that God makes answering these crucial questions so seemingly elusive?

He was like a man who wanted to change all; and could not; so burned with his impotence; and had only me, an infinitely small microcosm to convert or detest. John Fowles

Since this is important to me, I don't want my earlier reply to not get read iambiguous... We posted about the same time.

I want to add for James other examples,

People who are non idolatrists roil in pain when the see crosses, churches, weddings, baptisms...

Most people who think they are good are evil as fuck, not only do people actually do these things ... But even those that don't do not speak out against such evil. That's called being the asshole through omission ... The magnitude of evil in this planet is astonishing...

Ecmandu wrote:No, there are an infinite number of universes in a multiverse, and if you've learned anything from dreaming, there are many different rule sets in the cosmos

It doesn't matter how many universes there are ... there is no communication between universes. If you could see another universe from this universe, then that other universe would just be another part of this universe. That follows simply from the definition of 'universe'.

Ecmandu wrote:No, there are an infinite number of universes in a multiverse, and if you've learned anything from dreaming, there are many different rule sets in the cosmos

It doesn't matter how many universes there are ... there is no communication between universes. If you could see another universe from this universe, then that other universe would just be another part of this universe. That follows simply from the definition of 'universe'.

Hence, my point. I've seen a lot of different universes with a lot of different rule sets.

No, what I mean, is say, you become celibate or chaste, you're hurting good people who want to experience the bond of sexuality with you. If you're sexual, you're hurting all the good people who can't have sex with you because of imposed limitations.

If you become president, you hurt everyone else who wanted to be president, if you don't become president, you hurt all the people who wanted you to be president.

If you are homeless, you hurt everyone who this makes uncomfortable, if you have a home, you hurt everyone who wants that home.

Basically, the more you see life clearly, with sharp resolution, you become keenly aware, that no matter what you do here, you're hurting someone ...

This doesn't excuse hurting those people either ...

The goal , the real game in life, not the distractions, is to solve this problem once and for all, and not just lolly gag through life, living a meaningless life.

..doesn't seem to be related to anything that I said.

Clarify, Verify, Instill, and Reinforce the Perception of Hopes and Threats unto Anentropic HarmonyElseFrom THIS age of sleep, Homo-sapien shall never awake.

The Wise gather together to help one another in EVERY aspect of living.

You are always more insecure than you think, just not by what you think.The only absolute certainty is formed by the absolute lack of alternatives.It is not merely "do what works", but "to accomplish what purpose in what time frame at what cost".As long as the authority is secretive, the population will be subjugated.

Amid the lack of certainty, put faith in the wiser to believe.Devil's Motto: Make it look good, safe, innocent, and wise.. until it is too late to choose otherwise.

The Real God ≡ The reason/cause for the Universe being what it is = "The situation cannot be what it is and also remain as it is"..

Try disciplining yourself to not hurt others , if that's the only thing you got from my posts

..nor that.

Clarify, Verify, Instill, and Reinforce the Perception of Hopes and Threats unto Anentropic HarmonyElseFrom THIS age of sleep, Homo-sapien shall never awake.

The Wise gather together to help one another in EVERY aspect of living.

You are always more insecure than you think, just not by what you think.The only absolute certainty is formed by the absolute lack of alternatives.It is not merely "do what works", but "to accomplish what purpose in what time frame at what cost".As long as the authority is secretive, the population will be subjugated.

Amid the lack of certainty, put faith in the wiser to believe.Devil's Motto: Make it look good, safe, innocent, and wise.. until it is too late to choose otherwise.

The Real God ≡ The reason/cause for the Universe being what it is = "The situation cannot be what it is and also remain as it is"..